2023-07-07 08:35:00
This Saturday, at the Club Pacífico de Neuquén (Córdoba 153), the first Blend Fest will take place, a new experience that fuses music, audiovisual productions, graphic art, photography and gastronomy. Heading the lineup are 1915 and El Zar, two of the most interesting bands on the new Argentine rock scene. The locals Automata Personal, Andrómeda, Manteca Kush, Gise Ve & Mano A (see below) will also take part.
In a telephone interview with BLACK RIVER Journal, Cruz Hunkeler, voice and guitars from 1915, spoke regarding the desire to play following a pandemic that, like almost everyone in the world, altered their plans with one of their albums; regarding the desire to come to play in Neuquén; and regarding “Fuera de lugar”, the band’s last album released in December of last year.
“We really want to go to Neuquén, it is a place that they always ask us to go to because when we announce our shows on the networks and ask where they would like us to go, many ask us from Neuquén,” says Cruz. “The new album takes a leading role in the shows, but we do a tour of all our albums; In addition, we have a very good relationship with the boys from El Zar, the backstage is going to be nice too, ”she anticipates.
For several months the band has been touring and performing at major festivals such as Lollapalooza and Cosquín Rock. Their most recent show was at the Vorterix theater in Buenos Aires, where they officially presented “Fuera de lugar”. “We have come on tour presenting the new album, we have just presented it in Buenos Aires, so the band comes with all the rehearsal load and preparations, we are good, we are solid”, warns the guitarist and lead vocals from 1915.
«Penzo», keyboardist from 1915. (Photo: Facebook of the band)
“Fuera de lugar”, the fourth album by this band made up of four friends who have known each other since they were teenagers, Cruz Hunkeler (guitar and vocals), “Penzo” (keyboards and synths), Jeremías Alegre (drums) and Alejo Freixas (bass). , it was recorded the old-fashioned way: all the musicians gathered in the studio playing the songs. “It was very organic,” says Cruz in reference to the album.
It was natural that we wanted to make this record, to establish that 1915 is a rock band.”
Cruz Hunkeler
“We were quite exhausted from the quarantine, from getting together and recording demos from our homes and at one point we decided to record live and work it that way. Instead of doing it with a computer, we get together in the rehearsal room a lot of times to play songs, work on them by playing them and recording the progress with a cell phone; Later, when we went to the studio, it was the same but miked, we played each song a couple of takes and the objective was precisely to capture our essence by playing the rooms together, coming from a place where the live show is very different from the Past records, it was something that we saw and that many people also noticed, the intensity was different and on this record we wanted to record what happens live”.
For Hunkeler, “Fuera de lugar” is the band’s rockiest album with a more natural, raw and powerful sound: “more emotional and introspective lyrics, all of them are in the first person, something like a close-up experience”, he summarizes. .
Partly because of how it was recorded, without many options to get their hands on the production when recording the four instruments live, partly because of a decision regarding the music they wanted to play, “Fuera de lugar” certainly sounds more rock than its predecessors. being almost stripped of electronic arrangements and layers of guitars that would affect that “live” sound that they sought when the four of them went to play in the studio.
“It was natural that we wanted to make this record, to establish that 1915 is a rock band influenced by what we listened to when we were kids in high school,” he highlights.
“Out of place is the concept of us as a band”, explains Hunkeler in this regard, “from how we recorded it, old-fashioned, vintage if you want, because doing it live like we did, is something that was done before, the opposite of the current direction of things where everything is automated more. Going once morest the current in production and also musically, we feel that it is a played release because the songs are strange, they are not the easiest listening of the band. A way of saying something different, we are different and we don’t fit in and I think a lot of people feel that way.”
Cruz Hunkeler, guitar and voice from 1915. (Photo: Facebook of the band)
In January 2020, the 1915 had their third album ready, a work with a premonitory title of what was to come: “Los años futuros”, which of course was affected by the coronavirus pandemic. “Although it was already ready in January, we wanted to release it in March for an organizational matter, the launch, the presentation, the natural time that any album that is already finished has and that you have it there waiting for the right moment to release it. Well, it turned out that the precise moment to release it was not so precise (laughs)”, recalls Cruz regarding the altered plans with the previous album. “It changed us completely. At the beginning, it was those famous two weeks in which we said let’s wait, let’s release the album later, nothing happens. Another two weeks came, we waited, and we ended up putting it out in May because there was no point in waiting anymore.”
Alejo Freixas, bassist from 1915. (Photo: Facebook of the band)
The band did everything that might be done during that time of confinement to promote “Los años futuros”. Everything but what he was most interested in doing: a national tour. “With Fuera de Lugar it is the first time that we can present a national tour because that is what we wanted to do with Los Años Futuros and we mightn’t”, sums up Hunkeler. A tour that this Saturday will bring them to Neuquén.
Blend Fest: the schedule of shows, tickets and points of sale
18 hs. Apetura.
18:30 a 19 Audiovisual projections.
19 a 19:45 DJ Andromeda.
19:50 a 20 Performance – Retrofuturist Anthology.
20 a 20:30 Butter Kush.
20:45 a 21:15 Gise Ve & Mano A.
21:30 a 22:10 Personal Automaton.
22:30 a 23:30 1915
23:45 a 0:45 The Tsar
Appetizer: from $7000.
By system: alsurticket.com
Points of sale: Flipper Jugueterías (Neuquén) and Nikkel (Cipolletti)
1688719861
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